


Night Terrors

by Kissy



Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Blurred Dream/Reality, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:51:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissy/pseuds/Kissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These Tainted nightmares only manifest themselves in the dark, as light fades and shadows fall. A collection of Dragon Age shorts to be read in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Bitten

The Deep Roads really _were_ deep. Dark and deep. Alistair was sorry he had to be here. He was not afraid of the dark, but he was befuddled – why _was_ he here already? His Calling was many years away...wasn't it? There were too many things he had to do before descending into the pits. There was a kingdom to run, his daughters to raise, another wee one on the way, and the love and adoration of his entire country to bask in. Everything he hoped and dreamed of in his life had become true. Even his wife had begun to love him back.

Their relationship began with rivalry and underhandedness and spite. She bore him their first daughter before they began to truly enjoy each other's embrace. Even so, _now_ he was fond of his wife...but the circumstances in which he and she were married still rankled. The one person that he had willingly given his heart to had stabbed him in the back. The woman he had thought of as his heart's blood dickered with the Queen – using _him_ as a bargaining chip – and struck a deal without his knowledge. 

Elissa would not be a part of the deal. That hurt the most. 

After Alistair and Anora's much-anticipated Royal wedding, the newly-appointed Warden Commander went to Amaranthine, and the Vigil...and afterward, she disappeared. He never figured out where she went. It was something he realized he didn't care one whit about. He decided he didn't want to look for Elissa. He was happy. He never thought it possible, but he found that Anora made him happy.

 _Had_ made him happy, that was. He had to leave Anora behind.

Now he was here in the Deep Roads to face the end.

It seemed like he walked the Deep Roads for days, never once coming across a single Darkspawn. It was odd, to say the least. The Blight ended less than five years ago...and even if that were the case, the Horde should have filled these cavernous halls from end to end. 

Nevertheless, the erstwhile King of Ferelden walked unimpeded. He foraged for fungus and hunted Deepstalkers for food; he siphoned moisture from the damp walls to slake his thirst. He was here to perish, perhaps, but he refused to die of thirst or starvation.

Some three days after he began his final journey, Alistair felt stirrings above his head and beneath his feet, stirrings that bespoke of Darkspawn activity. He heard the Horde's song in his head. It was maddening, but he had endured worse during the Blight, when every bush hid a Genlock and every single gutted out homestead housed a Shriek or four.

He listened. He listened for the Darkspawn, and followed their call.

The day after the Horde spoke up, a new voice joined the cacophony. He had no idea what it could possibly be. He wondered: could it be a Broodmother...or perhaps a sentient Darkspawn?

Elissa had sent word to Denerim on just that issue, some few months after she had taken the position as Warden Commander. She and her new recruits had found a small faction of intelligent Darkspawn. He could hardly believe it, himself. A smart Hurlock...preposterous, really.

After Amaranthine fell, one of her recruits – the apostate that accompanied her to the Mother's Lair – was called to the Circle to give a lecture on the nature of intelligent Darkspawn. The Architect, as the leader of the intelligent Horde had decided to call itself, was born sentient and possessed a mind that could reason and make decisions and feel emotion. This obviously raised quite a stir throughout the magical and the intellectual worlds alike. The mage, a tow-headed Anders from Ferelden's own Circle, was honored by his old colleagues and asked to stay on.

The apostate from the Anderfels disappeared after giving his lectures. After all the things the rogue mage must have witnessed, Alistair wasn't too surprised. 

This Architect assisted Elissa and her new Warden gang against the new and improved Mother. She managed to spit out quite a few intelligent Darkspawn before Elissa and her Wardens defeated her forever. After Elissa returned to Amaranthine, the new Warden-Commander disappeared for good. He told himself time and time again that he didn't care. He almost believed it, himself.

Maybe she had come to the Deep Roads first. That was a cheery thought. Maybe she was already digesting in some Ogre's belly...or even better, he'd stumble across Elissa's moldering carcass somewhere between here and his own death, her rotting, liquefying flesh seeping into the dank earth beneath her body. Or maybe all that would be left was her bones, the flesh picked clean by foraging insects or Dragonlings or even a wandering, hungry Genlock.

He decided that it might be in his best interest to put that line of thought out of his head – he was going to die, sure, but why make these last few days or hours (...or minutes, not to put _too_ fine a point on it) of his life gloomy? He concentrated on the Horde's song

 _And just who did Elissa roger when she was in Amaranthine, Alistair? What new toy did she find to play with?_

and on putting one foot in front of the other

 _Was it the smarmy mage with the ready mouth and even readier libido, or the stoic archer that couldn't keep his eyes to himself?_

and on dying well...or as well as he could, at the hands of the Darkspawn Horde that waited for him.

_Maybe – maybe it was her Senechal...or one – or more! – of the Amaranthine guardsmen..._

He pressed his hands to his ears, as if to keep his aching brains from shooting out in a gout of malefic thought and gray matter. “Stop it,” he said to his mind as it gibbered at him. He stumbled to the edge of the hallway, and leaned against it.

 _She didn't want_ you, _did she, 'Your Highness'?_

“Stop it!”

Thankfully – mercifully – the capering, gamboling voice in his head fell silent. So did the noises of the Horde. They waited for him, now. He could sense it. They waited for him to arrive. Where were they...? Perhaps they congregated where this rocky hallway ended. He could see how this hallway fanned out and opened into a cavernous room, where he could see filtered, eldritch light beam from the imperfections in the _donjon's_ damaged ceiling. Perhaps this signaled the end of his journey. 

He crouched, trembling, against the dank cavern wall. He took a slow, deep breath, straightening his legs until he stood solidly on his own two feet. With a calmness that came from years of training his mind and body, he nodded once to himself and stepped lightly through the hallway's opening.

Yes. They were there, waiting...waiting and milling about. They had nothing to bind them into their hive mind anymore, now that the Archdemon was gone. Nonetheless, they noticed him there, and began moving toward him as one, meeping and shrieking and roaring in the damp gloom.

He hefted his longsword and Duncan's shield. He knew this was the end, but he'd be buggered if the Horde thought he was going to go down without a fight. 

“ _Yesssssss_...be angry. We love that. It seasons the meat.”

This new intrusion startled Alistair so profoundly that he dropped Duncan's fine shield and whirled toward the sound of this new voice. He rested his eyes on the one who spoke, and – surprisingly – threw his hands up in the air. “It figures.”

Elissa scowled at him, her wasted cheeks writhing over the bones in her skull. “Jiggered, are you?”

He dropped into an _en garde_ posture, the point of his sword juddering in the oily light that filtered through the ceiling. “No, Elissa. I knew you'd come to a bad end eventually, we all do...but why are you still _alive_?”

“I never said I was,” she said slowly. I breathe, and I feed. I live, perhaps...but not as I once did.” Her eyes trailed down his still-powerful body. She raised her countenance to his, her lips spreading in a frightful grin full of filthy, broken teeth. “You still look great, Alistair....delicious, even.”

The thing that stood before Alistair wasn't precisely Elissa, not anymore. To see her much-beloved face in a state of mindless hunger broke his heart as surely as a Darkspawn dagger through his ribcage. In the moments that followed, he almost wished that was what ended him.

A burly Hurlock's greatsword sliced through open air to tear his chestplate buckles from their seats. The Hurlock in question bellowed in Alistair's ear, causing it to ring in a further maddening way. The plate dropped with a clang to the ground at his feet. One of the tiny Genlocks rushed him, then, and plunged a serrated dagger into his underbelly. It flicked its wrist with an almost audible snap, unzipping its prey's guts quite efficiently.

His longsword dropped and forgotten, Alistair stood before the hateful, grinning ghoul Elissa had become, his eyes questioning her motives even as his intestines uncoiled like a grisly party favor between his fingers. He wobbled on his feet, made an almost exquisite noise of surprise and excruciation, and dropped to his knees.

“Maker...Elissa, help me!” Alistair raised one hand to his long-lost lover. His arm was immediately seized. There was a momentary spray of dazzling pain – a great sheet of white-hot agony – and then there was nothing. He tried to snatch his arm back from the Darkspawn that had confiscated it, before he realized he had no arm left to snatch back.

The Genlock that had eviscerated him dove head-first into the grisly pile of his guts and sank its teeth into a still-throbbing coil. It reared its head back, tearing a mouthful of Alistair's insides away with it. The Warden screeched wretchedly, knowing that this was meant to be but cursing his miserable fate anyway.

Parts of him were torn unceremoniously from his protesting body while other bits were subjected to the teeming mob's foul, diamond encrusted weapons or their sharpened teeth. As his armor and clothing were pulled from his body, he was slowly ripped apart. His quivering muscles were rent as the mindless throngs of Darkspawn pressed in for a meal. The Darkspawn peeled his hide back, his skin's nerve endings sizzling in a bath of his own blood. He was unmanned, an offense he had very little time to bemoan. The multitude tore his hair out by the roots, ripping patches of scalp out along with the double-handfuls of hair. He was mangled, lacerated, his ears filled with the cacophony of his own pain and the happy squeals of the freshly fed.

And then, Elissa appeared before him, her wasted face wearing a loathsome expression of ersatz pity. Her newly-made Horde friends vacated Alistair's broken form, making room for their ghoulish compatriot. She knelt before him, and ran her fingers through a slick spatter of blood on his cheek. She stuck her poxy, purplish-black tongue out and licked her fingers clean.

Elissa cackled as she raised her chitinous fingernails to Alistair's neck and tore his throat out. She dipped her head over the blood geyser, and drank deeply. The last thing Alistair saw with his dimming sight was Elissa, her face covered with his blood, as she said: “I was right...you _are_ delicious.” 

-=-=-=-=-=-

The inebriated man in the spotty, wrinkled doublet screamed thinly, flailing his arms as he brought his head up from the wine-sodden wooden table. He took a shaky, watery breath, passing a trembling hand over his flushed face. He glanced around, his embarrassment overlaid by a veneer of cheap alcohol and rancid fear-sweat.

The patrons of the Hanged Man glanced at the drunken fool in the corner for a brief moment, then turned back to whatever had occupied them before Alistair had screamed himself awake...all except two patrons. Both gazed upon him with what appeared to Alistair as pity. He hated the dusky woman and pale, drawn man for their sympathy. He didn't want it.

“What the hell're _you_ looking at, Pal?” Alistair said to the tow-headed man. “Piss off.”

The two glanced at each other, the pathos evident in their loaded expressions. The pale man turned back to Alistair. “You...look familiar.”

His swarthy companion nodded. “He's right. You _are_ familiar. Who are you?”

“Nobody.” Alistair ran his fingers through his tangled hair. “I'm nobody, not any more.”

“Wait...I remember you,” said the dark-skinned woman. “I met you and your lady-friend at the Pearl.” She shook her head, as she took in his disheveled appearance. “What on Thedas happened to you?”

Alistair sneered at the woman. “Lady-friend... _pssh_. To the Void with my 'lady-friend'. I was disgraced, if you really wanna know.”

She shrugged. “I _don't_ really want to know, but I'm sure we're going to hear the entire sad story. If the sots in here speak the truth, we're never going to hear the end of your bellyaching now.”

“Relax,” said Alistair. He crossed his arms on the stained tabletop, and dropped his head on his forearms. “I'll shut up now. Not like anyone cares about what I think.”

The woman pulled a sour face, and walked away. Her friend hung back, and Alistair sucked at his teeth in annoyance. _“What?”_

“You were a Grey Warden, too,” said the man. “That's how I remember you.”

Alistair raised his head, gazing blearily at the man. “I was, once.” He inclined his head at the blond man. “So were you, mage. You reek of the Taint, you know. You escaped the Warden's clutches, then?”

A thin flush spread across the man's pale cheeks. “Maybe. What of it?”

He put his head down again. “You think you escaped, but you didn't. You never escape. _Never._ The nightmare never ends.”


	2. Athazagora

The Vigil's common room was as silent as freshly fallen snow tonight. Nathaniel loved it. It reminded him of when he was a child, when he would come to this room with one of his beloved books and his tiny field lantern – the one his father gave him for his fifth birthday, against his mother's wishes – and a sandwich or three. He would sit in the dark, his little lantern glowing for all it was worth, delving deep into the worlds of the Vermicious Knid and Tom Bombadil and the Frumious Bandersnatch.

Nathaniel walked to the closest bookshelf and stroked his fingers down the spines of his old haunts. He leaned closer to the books, suddenly, realizing that he had reached for his family tree, and not a storybook like he initially thought.

The dusty tome filled with his family's history made the hackles stand on end for Nathaniel. His family's history was also one of his favorite haunts when he was a child, although not for the same reason as _The Hobbit_ or _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_. He remembered how much he wanted to be closer to his father when he was a child. He thought that if he learned all he could about his mother and father's history, they would love him more.

So he pored over this ugly, green leather-bound book, and studied up on his ancestors and how they lived – and died. He memorized the staring, blank-eyed woodcuts that adorned each of his ancestors' histories. He knew each and every one of his dead relative's biographies; how could he not remember how they died, as each grisly detail was almost lovingly included.

Nathaniel knew that Great Auntie Hermione was torn in half by two rabid Mabari hounds, and that her blood had permanently stained the front door's carpet. The hounds were worth a lot more than Great Aunt Hermione, so they were not put down immediately. Auntie's husband thought it best that they were kept under lock and key until he found someone stupid enough to buy the dogs. They escaped their bonds and killed numerous livestock, another Mabari, most of the wild animals in their area, and four more people...one was a child. On a related note, no one changed the carpet Great Auntie's blood seeped out onto. It was left there in memoriam to Great Auntie Hermione's awful end.

Cousin Ebenezer (twice removed) was crushed by a runaway oxcart. From what the family accounts said, Cousin Ebenezer (twice removed) was kicked in the head by a mule when he was four, and wasn't 'all there' at the time the oxcart ran him over. Most of his ancestral family were convinced that the accident was a blessing in disguise, and that Cousin Ebenezer (twice removed) was better off. It was also said, behind a tall mug of ale, that Cousin Ebenezer (twice...well, you get the idea) was _pushed_ in front of the oxcart that made his head look like a bowl of congealed blood pudding and parritch. The family's opinion on whether it was still a blessing or not didn't change when that tidbit of information was divulged.

His great-great-great grandfather Hiram succumbed to the Plague. His mother's sister's second son drowned during toddler-hood, on an unfortunate visit to Lake Calenhad. Nate's great-too-many-times-to-count grandmother on his father's side was dragged off during the second Blight...surely she was made into a Brood-mother. That bit of information made Nathaniel shudder. 

Nathaniel pulled a sour face as he blew dust off the cover. Was he _seriously_ considering reading this tripe? He looked down at the book, not quite feeling his way to the divan in the corner and wishing fervently for the little field lantern that his father had gifted him with all those years ago.

He dropped onto the divan, not quite averting his eyes from the dour portrait across the room. His mother frowned mightily at him, as he opened the book with his family's history. Without thinking, Nathaniel's eyes lifted to the portrait across the room, to his mother's much loved, much hated face.

If he didn’t know any better, Nathaniel could had sworn, right at that second, that his mother's eyes narrowed at him as her scowl deepened. Nathaniel blinked rapidly, as he shook his head hard enough to make his braided hair fly. He glanced at Mother again.

Nothing. Her face was as implacable as ever.

He took a deep breath and swiveled his head to the opposite wall, where his grandfather's portrait hung proudly. Nathaniel scanned the hall. _All_ of the portraits from his childhood had been hung. He wasn't sure when the Commander hung them; Nathaniel was certainly not told of their hanging. After what happened with his mother's portrait, he wasn't sure if the Orlesian Commander of the Grey had the brass fittings to hang even one more Howe portrait.

When he first realized Caron hung his mother's portrait without his permission, Nathaniel pitched a fit. He later told the Commander that his father hated his mother (and even now he wasn't sure _why_ he said anything to the Commander about what his father was like), and after much thought on the subject, he realized he hated his mother for the simple reason that his father did. It was stupid, and unfair, but he realized with horror that his entire way of thinking was directly influenced by his father.

And his father had turned into a monster.

A sharp wind shook the North Wall of the Vigil. The drafty eave that always sent a frosty quiver down his spine as a child was never repaired, it seemed. Nathaniel shivered in the blast of Arctic air, then cursed his bad luck as the sconces that lined the Great Hall flashed out in a sharp blast of cold wind.

 _“Pah,”_ Nathaniel spat. “Where's that damned lantern when I need it?” He peered through the gloom for someone – _anyone!_ – to help get his bearings back. It was a particularly dark night; it was two days past the New Moon and the stars did very little to illuminate much of anything. Grumbling to himself, Nathaniel stood and stuck his splayed hands before him to get his bearings. He started to walk, shuffling so as not to trip over a trailing table leg or maybe a somewhat stinky dwarf asleep by the cider keg.

“Is there anyone there?” he said to the open air, as he staggered through the soupy darkness. Nathaniel stopped; he heard a sound like November wind through ancient canvas, like a dry exhalation. Shaken, Nathaniel called out into the darkness. “I can't see bugger-all. I don't want to break my neck, so if someone's there...”

“Yes,” said a small, quiet voice, “and no.”

The pale archer's eyes widened in the gloom, his breath catching painfully in his throat. “Who is that?” said Nathaniel, his voice harsh in his own ears.

“I'm forgotten,” the voice replied. It was a woman's voice, and familiar. “You will be, too.”

In raw panic, Nathaniel stumbled forward, arms outstretched, until he touched a smooth face. “Oh...thank the Maker. Who is this? I...”

False dawn filtered through the cracks in the wall's mortar; the uncanny, pale light tinged the walls and bookshelves and portraits with a transparent, ghostly hue. The sconces glowed with a sickly, oily gleam in the nearly imperceptible light. Even in this faint non-light, Nathaniel realized he had not reached out and touched another person's countenance; he faced the wall opposite the divan, and caressed not human flesh but oil paints. His hands were splayed on his mother's portrait.

“Andraste's shining arsehole,” the taciturn archer muttered, terrified of the quality of his voice in the gloom. The sound of his own voice was far too loud in his ears. Nathaniel removed his hands from his mother's portrait. He sucked at his teeth in annoyance, and turned on his heel to quickly make his way to his room _while there was light...just taking advantage of this tiny bit of light_ he lied to himself. All of a sudden he wanted to sprint to the safety of his Spartan bedroom...and perhaps hide under his fine down comforter until morning.

Spooked, his breath thick in his throat, Nathaniel spun around, and realized the light wasn't coming from any false dawn. From the darkness before his eyes, a ghostly face swam from the gloom. Its body followed, and Nathaniel could not help but look down

_Oh holy Maker it has no legs where in the Void are its legs_

at what should have been – to his pragmatic mind, anyway – a wondrous, ethereal sight. The specter raised one spindly, trembling finger at Nathaniel, and intoned, “You were the only one who chose to remember our family, but you wanted to push me from your mind thanks to your father's mind-rot and your insistence on idolizing the monster. Because you are the last, you are the only one who remembers. When you die, no one will remember _either_ of us.”

“That's not true,” said Nathaniel, hugging his arms around his midsection. He stumbled back against his divan and sprawled against it. He raised his hands in a warding-off gesture against the advancing spook. “I _will_ be remembered!”

“You will not,” said the phantom dolefully. “One hundred years from now, you will be forgotten. No one will know of your existence.” 

The specter's eyes widened, became lamp-like in the darkness as Nathaniel began pleading with the ghost. “Mother! _I_ haven't forgotten you! I _won't_ forget! Never, I promise! Please, don't let them forget me!”

The phantom's mouth stretched wide – far, _far_ too wide – in a humorless, terrifying grin. Its mouth yawned as wide as its eyes, and Nathaniel crouched on his divan and covered his head with his forearms, rocking back and forth. The ghost of his dead mother cackled wildly. “What makes you think you're so special, Nathaniel? Have you done anything special enough to be remembered?” The specter pointed to the horrid green leather-bound book now lying open, forgotten, on its spine. “Do you think your new friends will bother detailing your life in a book as wonderful as your own Family Tree? You are one of many...you all die so quickly. No one in your new Order cares much to remember any individuals. What would be the point of that, hmm?”

The ghost of Nathaniel's mother swept close to Nathaniel, and he felt her chill wind on his sweaty face... _was_ that sweat, or something else? “No matter what you say to the contrary, you'll eventually forget me and those that came before you. People like your father – like _you_ – always do. And you shall enjoy that same nicety when you become dust.” The specter pushed her eldritch face into Nathaniel's, and he could not help but look into the ageless eyes of his mother's ghost...and what he saw there made him shriek and tear at his hair. “Get used to it, dearest,” the ghost spat, as Nathaniel wailed in the dark...forgotten and alone. 

“No!” Nathaniel howled. He scrambled to his feet, and reached for his blade. “I won't be forgotten!” He ran at his mother's specter, his dagger raised above his head. The _Talon of the Skies_ whickered through the air, and sliced through his mother's ghostly face over and over. “Never, never, _never_!”

-=-=-=-=-=-

The Commander of the Grey flew on silent feet to the Great Hall, where the sound of fear had come from. This was nothing new to the Commander, who had babysat more than one Warden through their nightmares...be they fresh recruits or right before their Calling.

Right before entering the Hall, the Commander snatched a blazing torch from the wall sconce. The fire pushed the shadows back. The Commander entered the Great Hall on fleet feet, only to slide to a halt in the doorway.

What he saw would have given anyone pause. Nathaniel sat on the stone floor, his legs spread wide. On his lap was his mother's portrait. The taciturn archer mumbled the same nonsensical words over and over, as he tried to smooth the ragged ends of a shredded oil portrait back to where they once belonged.

The commander crossed the room to Nathaniel, and knelt beside his friend and the tattered remnants of the painting. Nathaniel tried repeatedly to bring the ends of the torn canvas together, his hands stained by muddy oil paint. Nathaniel did not look at the Commander; he did not appear to know The Warden was there. He simply stroked the canvas, his hands splotched and streaked with oily gore, his unseeing eyes very wide and as thundery-gray as a cyclone. Nathaniel's whispered words had finally become clear to the Commander:

“I won't forget, promise...please don't forget me. I won't forget; I promise, Mum. Please don't let them forget me...I won't forget, I won't, I won't, _I won't..._


End file.
